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Importance of Considering Author Demographics for the Group Shelf (The Topic Formerly Known As "Straight, White, Old Dudes... or Not?")
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ORR...people can get used to looking into things. I regularly check opposing viewpoints just to make sure nothing has changed (it hasn't in about 4 years now) and see if there's a better way to manage it (there isn't, in about 2000 years now) but hey! Worth trying.
When I was still in law school I made it a point to read one thing that made me uncomfortable every day. I'd google something I'd heard or that a friend said in passing that made me feel defensive or offended or whatever and read about it until I understood my reaction. It's not pleasant, but my reactions are my personal responsibility, and if I want to be someone people can be around, it's on me, not them, to make me safe in their space.
Then some things in the world changed and the one thing turned into "the constant doom scroll" so that's sort of pivoted a bit, but I still try to practice the concept.
The other thing is you can't be kind to everyone. You can be nice, which is a peace-keeping mechanism, but you can't have the Grand Wizard and a Black man in the same room and protect them equally. To be kind is to exclude those who are not safe to the people you hold room for, unfortunately. Excluding can include teaching them or telling them to be quiet or to actively leave, but it's just not possible to extend the same grace at the same time to someone who has been hurt and someone who is actively doing the hurting--zero tolerance is a great way to promote bullying. And my personal focus must be on protecting those whose dignity and literal life is at stake.
The problem there is that of course the people who need to change are those in power, and excluding those in power makes the hill that much harder to climb, and is often dangerous as that's the group most likely to get extremely aggressive.
Daryl Davis is an extreme case, I selected it as a powerful example but acknowledge it has highest risk as well.
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Having to share your pain every time an individual has no personal experience with that sort of pain is...draining. It's part of the hurt of things like "micro-aggressions" where you're forced to relive moments of personal indignity or fear and have to decide if you want to confront it, with the possible downsides of being told you're overreacting or hurting your cause or actual physical violence, or just suck it up and move on which you then internalize and stew over and stress about because you keep poking it with your mind and the REAL kicker is that the dial doesn't move for anyone else either way. It takes a lot of folks speaking up about really painful things and being abused terribly for even a baby step forward, and that's not catharsis, that's self-sacrifice. See: the metoo movement, the BLM movement, and the fact that Flint still doesn't have clean water, for some local examples.
Such wonderful contributions, people! Thank you! 🥰By the way, I have a suggestion: could we rename the thread title? I realize that Mike named it this way to be a little cheeky and provocative, but it sort of seems to imply that we'd like to be age-ist (I don't recall anyone saying anything against older authors?) and that we want to say "no" or "not" to "straight, white, old" authors and sort of eliminate them from our selections - something nobody has actually suggested as far as I can remember.
I'm thinking that some people may be attracted to the thread title in outrage, then skim the first post, not read the rest due to thinking they know its content, and then write a passionate defense of authors like them, just because at first glance it appears that this was an anti-them discussion, which isn't at all the case. Everyone here has plenty of favorite books by old white dudes that they love with all their hearts, nor is anyone here planning to organize a boycott depriving SWD authors of their livelihood.
We just wanted to remind ourselves regularly to be a little more mindful, thoughtful and inclusive of various different kinds of people when nominating group discussion material.
In terms of the group always returning to SWDs the moment we have a "free selection": it's natural, those default books are marketed to us every day, and consciously reminding oneself to nominate/vote for them less is a bit like going on a "no pizza" diet. You know you can have all the wonderful dishes in the world, just no pizza. The very moment you're given a cheat day, you'll have a giant pizza, even if it's not your favorite food at all. It's just a psychological thing: restrictions increase one's craving and appreciation for whatever is forbidden. (No, I'm not going to suggest having "No Diversity" months to make use of this paradoxical effect. 😂 Although after like two of those, your next free selection month would probably be filled with all the diversity to the max. I'm pretty sure you could even get those Rainbow Six players to read diverse literary fiction if you had a woman forbid them from doing so for like half an hour.)
Anyway, the point is not to go on a "no SWDs!" diet, but just to remind oneself occasionally to add more diversity, as far as I've understood from other people's posts. And also to keep in mind how incredibly nice it can be in a book discussion when one feels really understood and accepted for the first time by others outside of one's own group, because they've now read from a perspective like yours and get it.
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Allison wrote: "I had the same thought about the title, but this is Mike's thread so Mike gets to decide what he'd like to do"Throw me some ideas, all my creativity is being drained off at work or home right now.
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Put this in the title: Ƭ̵̬̊
Sorry, forgot you're a lawyer for a second."I hearby grant, in perpetuity and beyond, to the moderators of SFFBC and their heirs (if any) such rights to the naming of the godreads topic 21983226, known under the aliases
Straight, White, Old Dudes... or Not?
The Topic Formerly Known As "Straight, White, Old Dudes... or Not?"
Ƭ̵̬̊ or, The Topic Formerly Known As "Straight, White, Old Dudes... or Not?"
and such abbreviations and diminutives as may develop, all the rights and responsibilities granted to me by goodreads for the naming and renaming of the aforementioned topic.
This Twentieth day of the month of May of the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty One.
Funsuckers, all of you. Sucked the fun right out of my title.Which, by the way, was accurate to Anna's original post, although I now see she included "old" in parentheses.
Mike wrote: "to the moderators of SFFBC and their heirs "I'll let my mom know.
Mike wrote: "I now see she included "old" in parentheses."
(Obviously.)
I haven't had time to check out the link that Phillip posted, but I did want to chime in here. I don't agree that personal relationships are the ONLY way to change hearts and minds. I do think that it requires empathy, though, and the ability and DESIRE to understand a perspective and experience not ones own. There has to be a something that is relatable for them to start the process, but I don't think that it needs to be someone they know or are close to. (For my brother, that was George Floyd's murder.)I think that, when dealing with such massive concepts as systemic and structural racism (for example), unless you have experienced it or know someone who has, it's just not a relatable concept, so it doesn't seem real to you. It's too abstract.
Any large data set has this problem though - it's just too big to see clearly. (I personally struggle with the size and age of the universe, or even the size and depth of the oceans. They are just too large for my puny brain's comprehension, and thinking too much about it gives me very real anxiety... which probably isn't helped by my fascination with both lol.)
Breaking it down into smaller, more individual parts makes it relatable and understandable, even if you don't personally have a dog in the race. I think this is why telling stories about personal experience with discrimination IS important, even though it sucks, and it's unfair, and it really shouldn't be the person who has been discriminated against's responsibility. It just does help to add a face, a name, a reality to the things that many just aren't able to see in the abstract. You can describe the problem of racism in policing until the cows come home, but watching police commit a murder for 9 minutes... that makes it heartbreakingly real.
I also completely agree with Allison on personal education and seeking out information about topics we're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. I've been to the beach, but never to the depths of the ocean, so I am as unfamiliar with that as someone who lives in a 99% white town is with a Black person. So I read about it, and educate myself.
My area is 80% white, 3.8% black. I have known and been friends with many types of people in my life, but since I moved here, I haven't had that pleasure. I work from home and have little opportunity to interact with anyone, let alone form close personal relationships with Black people for the purposes of understanding their experiences (which, let's be honest, also seems exceedingly white-centric and selfish. "Let's be friends so you can educate me on your disenfranchisement!" isn't really ideal and not at all what I would want to do)... But that doesn't mean that I can't take it upon myself to learn and educate myself so I'm not ignorant to the issues that others face and I don't because of my skin color. And so I have been for many years, and continue to do so regardless of whether I have relevant personal relationships or not. Because it's on me to be better, not on anyone else. :)
Almost in tears here. I probably meant "descendants", not "heirs", but what can you do? My daughter's going to be the lawyer, not me. (Obviously!)
Munchkin Mayor: Then this is a day of independence for all the Munchkins and their descendants!
Munchkin Advisor: If any!
Munchkin Mayor: Yes - let the joyous news be spread! The Wicked Old Witch at last is dead!
Mike wrote: "Sorry, forgot you're a lawyer for a second."I hearby grant, in perpetuity and beyond, to the moderators of SFFBC and their heirs (if any) such rights to the naming of the godreads topic 21983226,..."
LOL!
Mod
I probably meant "descendants", not "heirs", but what can you do? My daughter's going to be the lawyer, not me. (Obviously!)
Munchkin Mayor: Then this is a day of independenc..."
You will receive a notice of your new posting name and my fee in 4-6 business days. ;-)
Becky, re: it doesn't HAVE to be a personal relationship, one of the activists I follow is named Jay Smooth. He goes out of his way in all things to be approachable, easy to understand and calm. He says he likely has about a 10% rate of people "getting it" when they've come to his posts unwilling to take in what he's saying.
10%. For a guy whose literal work is to help people dismantle their own biases, and who does so ceaselessly and with a ton of education and experience behind him to help him get his message across.
So...yes, I guess that means we CAN change minds other ways, but the math is not in your favor nearly the same as if it were a parent or close friend...or an individual choice made in the hopes of self improvement/awareness. And in a forum like this, it would mean getting one or maybe two people to change their minds at the expense of like 100 people who've now read this and chosen not to involve themselves. (We are not professionals, tone is hard to read in text, so I'm saying we're about 20% as good at this as he is by himself, which seems about accurate given my own success rates).
I'm not sure even with that estimate that it's NOT worth it, but I do know it's unkind of me to assume 100 people are gonna be okay getting slapped in the hopes of teaching 1 person to stop hitting.
Allison wrote: "Becky, re: it doesn't HAVE to be a personal relationship, one of the activists I follow is named Jay Smooth. He goes out of his way in all things to be approachable, easy to understand and calm. He says he likely has about a 10% rate of people "getting it" when they've come to his posts unwilling to take in what he's saying."I don't disagree that it's far more effective for people who have that kind of personal relationship... but "personal relationship" implies that they'd already have a base-level (at least) openness to these ideas and concepts in the first place, and at least have moved past open hostility.
For people who are actively unwilling to hear or contemplate an idea or information, I think a 10% conversion rate is pretty good, honestly. It's like building a house but having to excavate through solid rock first, vs when the foundations and basement are already done for you.
I don't know. It just seems to me like that personal relationship "requirement" does a bit of a disservice to people who may be open to the ideas but have no close friends or neighbors etc, or opportunities for relationships with people who can help them relate across demographics, and I really dislike that idea of people thinking that they need a Black Friend in order to be a friend to Black people. I'm probably saying this really badly, but I'm typing this in between meetings, so it'll have to do!
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Yes! For sure! If you have willingness to learn/understand and no one to talk to about it, the internet is aces for that! Sorry to have been unclear/misunderstood you and your totally valid point.
Allison wrote: "AAHH! I see the disconnectYes! For sure! If you have willingness to learn/understand and no one to talk to about it, the internet is aces for that! Sorry to have been unclear/misunderstood you an..."
Yes! This. Much more succinct and clearly stated than my rambling, thank you! :D
Michel wrote: "Do these morons represent the majority of boys/men playing those videogames? I sincerely hope not"I don't know if it's a majority but it definitely feels like it. The anonymity of playing that way makes it an entirely different culture than playing face to face. It gives people license to be as horrible as they want to be with no social consequences.
I've played a lot of mmorpgs. Sometimes I played male characters, sometimes female characters, because that's how I am in real life too. The difference in how I was treated based on how other players perceived me was sickening. Solely because of the sex of my toon. There were times when it was a whole lot worse than in that video. Like graphic rape and death threats because I wasn't "nice" to them. Obviously, it's SO much worse for women having to deal with that all the time. If I used a microphone then I'd get all kinds of homophobia too. I got to hear it frequently, even when it wasn't directed at me. Being a pet peeve of mine, it'd usually get turned on me eventually. Telling them to stop doing something makes you a target.
My husband was Black and the amount of racism he encountered was obscene. From the slurs and viciousness to those who insisted they were being nice but the racism was just as demeaning. Like "You sound too educated to be Black". Occasionally, we'd run into somebody spouting pure Nazi ideology. He even got doxxed one time. They posted a Google Earth image of our house along with the location. And of course, this was accompanied by all kinds of death threats. For no reason. Just for existing, I guess.
It all got worse with the last US presidential administration and we eventually just stopped playing entirely. Even when you try to only play with people you know, there are always random asshats who have to get in your face either because they don't think you have a right to be there or just because they think they're being funny. It's incredibly toxic.
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Mmorpgs? Doxxed? What do they mean?
And this is why even though my 7 year olds have girl friends playing on roblox to stay connected I just…can’t…with the online gaming for them yet. Ugh.
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mmorpg is a massively multiplayer online role playing game, like Baldur's Gate or WoW
doxxed is sharing someone's personal information so that people can harass them.
Michel wrote: "Mmorpgs? Doxxed? What do they mean?"mmorpg = massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Online games like World of Warcraft. There are tons of others though.
doxxed = (from internet slang "dox" meaning documents) It's when someone obtains and makes public your private, identifying information like your name, address, or place of employment. This is usually malicious and accompanied by threats or stalking.
You beat me to it, Allison. I don't know why your reply didn't show up before I stated typing.
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*These are both not factual. Objects may appear stealthier or speedier in rear view mirror.
I agree it can get much worse than in that video - it's only part 1 of a 17 part series of videos, and it's by far the tamest. If you watch further, you'll see the rape and death threats, the *countless* times she gets "friendly-fire" killed by her own team mates for being a girl, the countless times they ask her to send them her urine, the countless times they follow her character around panting and slurping into the microphone, team mates incapacitating her and miming a gang rape, constantly yelling into her ear and then blaming her for their own mistakes, and so on, you get the whole picture. And considering that most female gamers get into the hobby at age 12/13/14 or so, you can imagine what an insanely thick skin and calm temper they need to even consider sticking with it. And even though perhaps the majority of players aren't like this, it only takes one such experience to make someone quit the hobby.
And I agree with the assessment that these are just regular guys you meet every day, just with the social niceness enforced by consequences removed through anonymity and a highly aggressive, competitive environment.
There's also appears to be a very real mob mentality aspect, too, Eva, where even if the individual might not be inclined to harass someone, once the group gets going, it's very hard to not go along. I read a book a few years back that went into this in detail and I was really surprised that people are so easily swayed to behave in a group in ways that they wouldn't on their own, but since then I've seen evidence of it everywhere.
Yes, that's true! I've read that, as well.
Becky wrote: "There's also appears to be a very real mob mentality aspect, too, Eva, where even if the individual might not be inclined to harass someone, once the group gets going, it's very hard to not go alon..."Lord of the Flies is an excellent description of that
CBRetriever wrote: "Lord of the Flies is an excellent description of that"Indeed it is.
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(last edited May 20, 2021 03:54PM)
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Report finds UK books world has marginalised and pigeonholed ethnic minorities
Diversity in science fiction needs action now
Writing the Future: Black and Asian Authors and Publishers in the UK Market Place (PDF)
Publishing's diversity deficit - University of Stirling (PDF)
This discussion started out with a post about the percentage of books by "straight, white (old) dudes" that get selected for BOTM. The selections are also heavily biased toward books by authors from USA and occasionally Canada and Britain. I'd like to read more from other countries, including translated work. I've tried nominating such things in various groups and they usually don't get chosen. Unless the group and/or theme of the month explicitly calls for works from other parts of the world, they will get crowded out.
How about James Tiptree Jr., who was actually Alice Sheldon? When he was revealed as a she, there was much angry kerfuffling in the (male) SF world :)
Thanks Ryan for sharing those articles - especially that one from 1965! I'm not surprised, but it goes to show how this is not a new conversation at all.
Ed wrote: "This discussion started out with a post about the percentage of books by "straight, white (old) dudes" that get selected for BOTM. The selections are also heavily biased toward books by authors fro..."True! You might like this group where we exclusively read books from other countries: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
In my experience, in regular groups non-default-country reads generally fail due to availability: usually there's no ebook version on the US store, and the paperbacks tend to be more expensive/hard to get. We recently had this issue even with Momo, which is one of the most famous, popular, on-every-school-curriculum-here book you can think of. It's generally even harder with less well-known works.
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Eva wrote: "... You might like this group where we exclusively read books from other countries ..."I'm a pretty active member there. Hard to miss me as I'm the only horse in the group. (Or the only one who's revealed himself to be one.)
And, yeah, your point about book availability is definitely true.
a lot of UK books never make it to the US except as over-priced paper versions (three of Adrian Tchaikovsky's books fall into this category)
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this here, but I often post on the Amazon help forums (there have been three different ones that covered Kindle books), but about every month or two someone would post asking how to keep books from women out of his search results because women couldn't possibly write, or do a good job of writing, Science Fiction or War books.Nasty arguments would ensue, people would trot out Tiptree, Cherryh, Andre Norton, etc and tempers would flare for a few days then cool off until the next thread of this ilk came along.
Today, it's more like: How do I get rid of these Bollywood recommendations? And yes, I'm CBRetriever over there too, but don't ask me anything about Alexa, Echo devices, Smart Home devices or Amazon music because i know nothing about them.
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Indeed. Its one of the reasons why I've not really engaged with the discussion.
According to Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment about one in five books published in the US make back their advances. A fact that comes to mind whenever an argument is made to support the status quo of publishing. Blockbusters is an enjoyable and interesting (to me) non fiction read that I recommend often. It mentions, though sadly not with satisfactory depth, how the internet has actually made it easier for the traditional gatekeepers of Entertainment to gain even more control.
Non-Hispanic white people account for 60 percent of the U.S. population; in 2018, they wrote 89 percent of the books in our sample.
Ryan wrote: "Non-Hispanic white people account for 60 percent of the U.S. population; in 2018, they wrote 89 percent of the books in our sample.""I was very curious about the apparent disparity between this number and a previous poster's statement of close correlation between minority population in general and minority authors.
Disclaimer -- I wish to be fair about discussion of the point. I think the OP did too. I think the authors of the article did too. I think there is a disproportionate number of white authors, and, eye-opening in the article, the pay for writing is higher if you are white. But I also know from professional experience that Twain was right -- there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Further disclaimer, I read the first half of the NYT article before pausing to comment here (I have a job to get to...) It's a well written article with professionally done research, and the author has academic chops that... well, you look. I think they favor accuracy in analysis.
So, facts about the facts to ponder before making up your mind: The books sampled were filtered first for popularity: "...held by at least 10 [WorldCat] libraries and [there were] digital editions." The authors note that they constrained the search to the five most prolific publishers and ranged back to 1950. The final sample of authors was 3,471.
Meaning? I'm not sure. Definitely, we should consider that small-press and smaller runs for POC audiences likely didn't show in the study. And that 1950-1980 was still a time before us markets embraced diversity.
But... the author is the professor of cultural analytics, so we can give him credit for knowing how to gather data. In the end, I don't know. I would guess that the numbers now are not as bad, but still not good enough.
Sorry, abrupt analysis. I'm now late for work. God bless and read diversely!
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https://datausa.io/profile/soc/writer...
They have a page on where they get their data from and how they comb it so you can figure out any biases etc.
Allison wrote: "It's kind of hard to compare someone's actual data analysis with an unsubstantiated statement, so I don't know what to do with the initial declaration other than to discredit it entirely until and ..."Okay, so the link you gave was for the early post (first fifty or so, I think) claiming only slight variations in minority parity from the distribution of the U.S. population. Got it.
Honestly, yeah, I think it looks way worse than "near parity". This link jumps right to the ethnicity portion. ?I interpret that POC have a 38.7% share of the U.S. population, and only a 19.3% share of the writing market.
So, far from parity, and if the statistic can truly be interpreted this way, it seems a POC's chance of being published is half what it should be.
Good to have the data, and thanks, Allison for finding that site.
Thanks, everyone, if you let me think out loud about Ryan's NYT article and didn't get riled up. My final takeaway would be that it is accurate, even if dipping mostly from the "high-end" of the publishing industry. Things may be better at the "not high end", or they may not be, but where the big money lies for publishers, the difficulty really is set lowest for SWDs.
have their been any studies written about the impact of self-publication on the numbers? Most of the articles I've read or have been linked here deal with major publishers.
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I'm sure lots of people are WRITING books. Is anyone finding/buying/reading them? Are publishers considering them? Is there EQUITY in the market?
AMG wrote: "I've always been very bitter about how hard it is to get books from other countries in the US. ..."Me, too. There are lots of pieces to that puzzle. One is that the publisher has to purchase the rights to sell in the US market, and those rights cost a lot more than the rights to sell in smaller markets. But that is all a different conversation from this thread.
Ed wrote: "AMG wrote: "I've always been very bitter about how hard it is to get books from other countries in the US. ..."Me, too. There are lots of pieces to that puzzle...
But that is all a different conversation from this thread."
If I can start a topic, anyone can!
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment (other topics)Momo (other topics)
Lord of the Flies (other topics)
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (other topics)
Writing the Other (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
James Tiptree Jr. (other topics)C.J. Cherryh (other topics)
C.L. Moore (other topics)
Robert A. Heinlein (other topics)
Alexis Hall (other topics)
More...
(bow, with flourish)
Allison wrote: "...and honor everyone who shared his personal the political is. It kills me that you need to parade your pain for scraps of empathy,"
Not here and not this topic, but the telling of my painful stories is more a pain release. But for those for whom the telling carries small benefit, take some heart that your stories have helped me grow, and I'll honor that as Allison said.
Adding DTB == "dead tree" book (although no one said it here, it flummoxes me)
I feel like Dr. Rick.